I've suggested (& published in 18 journal papers) a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that assumes that inertia is caused by relativistic horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation, cosmic acceleration & the emdrive without any dark stuff or adjustment.My Plymouth University webpage is here, I've written a book called Physics from the Edge and I'm on twitter as @memcculloch

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Ten Years On

It was just a bit over 10 years ago that I took the first step into the MiHsC paradigm, and my diary entry for that day is shown below. I remember excitedly sending an abstract off to the Alternative Gravities Workshop in Edinburgh, 2006, and speaking there later. I also remember being rather desperate to publish quickly for fear that someone else might have the same thought. It is quite amusing that a decade on, I'm still trying to persuade anyone at all to have the same thought! No professional physicist has understood MiHsC, as far as I know. Maybe a couple of mathematicians have.

I'm left frustrated. I've published 11 papers and a book showing that MiHsC predicts galactic rotation and cosmic acceleration and other anomalies (eg: emdrive) in a beautiful and simple way and without any ad hoc adjustable parameters. This inevitability is a huge advantage, but seems not to move people who prefer to rely on the ad hoc explanation of dark matter. I get the impression of half-pursuading physicists occasionally, only for them to vanish. Critics never mention contrary data, but complain that I 'disagree with the old theory'. I always make the point that it is OK to disagree with the old theory if you agree with the data better than the old theory, but effectively they then reiterate that I disagree with the old theory. I've found that it is very important at this point not to go mad.

The solution as ever is to predict something that dark matter cannot, and for that reason I've just submitted a paper on Milky Way dwarf satellite galaxies which, as usual, spin far faster than they should and the amounts of dark matter needed to hold them together are jaw-droppingly ridiculous. Also, yesterday feeling myself to be rather in a vacuum, or solitary confinement, I contacted Prof Stacy McGaugh who I met at the Alternative Gravity Workshop, asking for some, any, feedback. He asked me for a MiHsC prediction and I said 'concentric rings of apparent mass in low acceleration systems' (a prediction I made in my first paper in 2007, see the discussion part). He then replied saying that something like that has been seen (Jee et al., 2014) and the rings cannot sensibly be explained by dark matter (you'll see in the paper they propose one of the usual complex simulation-type explanations). So my next goal is to see if I can predict the ring's radius.

I should have known in advance how hard it would be to change a paradigm, but the important thing, is to calmly focus on showing that MiHsC is simpler, more predictive and more beautiful than the other theories, as I believe it is by a mile. Having said that, MiHsC is the beginning of a shift to information physics, not the end, so there's plenty of scope for others to contribute and I hope they do.

12 comments:

Please keep up your interesting work, don't give up! If you could explain more anomalies other people will be forced to deal with your theory. You are onto something that could change not just your personal life but also our planet.

Another option would be to wait until dark matter research becomes too fruitless and too expensive. If you are right that point should be reached soon.

Well, I wanted to be a professional physicist once :)I like your ideas a lot, and I agree that dark matter seems to have about as much rigour as phlogiston.I get the feeling that the existence of Unruh radiation is contentious in itself - perhaps using it to explain inertia is just a step too far for some.How would you take a step back and demonstrate Unruh radiation separately?

Hi. One way to look at it is that if you assume Unruh radn does exist then, with MiHsC, you can predict cosmic acceleratn w/o dark energy, galaxy rotation w/o dark matter & other anomalies, but you're right that a direct test for Unruh radiatn would be a good idea. The trouble is you need a huge acceleration to see it. Its temperature is given by T=hbar*a/2*pi*c*k, so Temperature = 4*10^-21*acceleratn, so you need a huge acceleratn to detect it. Some systems may suffice, for example electrons propagating over nanotips, see: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0510743

Good point. I looked at sonoluminescence a few years ago, and found I could predict the high temperatures implied by the em radiation given off, with a 'Bubble-scale Casimir effect' the same as the Hubble-scale Casimir effect I use in MiHsC. The problem is the water absorbs a lot of the radiation (light) emitted so it's difficult to be sure exactly what the extreme temperature is and there's seems to be a link with noble gases that I can't explain. IMO there's a chance that the light emitted is Unruh radiation, but how to prove it properly is another matter.